Jaitley remembers 26/11 on its 5th anniversary

New Delhi : Rajya Sabha Opposition leader Arun Jaitley of the Bhartiya Janata Party on Monday remembered the fifth anniversary of the 26/11 terror attack on Mumbai five years ago, calling for a need to build a national determination against terrorism.

“Post 9/11, the Americans have substantially immunized their nation against terror. Why can’t we do that,” he asked in a Facebook post.He said, “There is enormous amount of evidence and intelligence information available with our agencies, which conclusively establishes that the conspiracy for this terrorist attack was hatched across the border in Pakistan. The interrogation of David Coleman Headley by both the FBI and the NIA also evidences this.”However, he said, Pakistan has refused to co-operate in nailing down the principal conspirators like Hafiz Saeed and others who were responsible for planning the attack. “Five years after the Mumbai attack, it is time to introspect where we stand in our fight against terror. Our western neighbour has not given up its designs to destabilize India through cross-border terrorism. Pakistani soil continues to be used to plan such attacks against India.”Jaitley went further to accuse Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying that he “let us down at Sharm-el-Sheikh when he agreed to delink the composite dialogue from the Pakistani attitude against terror.” He regretted that the Centre and some state governments link the battle against terror with vote bank considerations rather than the concern for the national security, by allowing a lot of indigenous modules to operate in various parts of the country.